Part 20

“I didn’t much trouble tellin’ you of that chap on the way out,” said Bowlby. “There’s no use in meetin’ troubles half way, and there’s not an island in the hull Pacific you won’t find trouble of some sort in. If you go in for Pacific tradin’ there’s two things you have to face, cockroaches and men. I’ve kept the old Gleam pretty free of ‘roaches by fumigatin’, but you can’t fumigate islands. If you could I reckon you’d see more rats with hands and feet takin’ to the water than’s ever been seen since the Ark discharged cargo. Seedbaum’d be one of them, but you have his measure now and you’ll know enough to go careful with him. Wiart, the last man that was here, got on all right with him. You see, they were pretty much of a pair, and it’s my belief they were hand in glove, as you might say, but I reckon you won’t have much use for a glove like that. Well, I’ll get you ashore now to see your house and I’ll help to fix it up for you. We’ll begin gettin’ the cargo ashore to-morrow.”

He ordered a boat to be lowered and they rowed ashore.

Never, not even in dreamland, had Mrs. Connart experienced anything so strange as that stepping on shore from the bow of the boat run high and dry on the shelving beach, never anything like the touch of land after the long, long weeks of seafaring, and the sights, the sounds, the perfumes all new, belonging to a new life to be lived in a new world.

The white houses set in a little garden at the far end of the village pleased her as much as the place. Her house is almost as much as her husband to a woman, for, to a woman a house implies so much more than to a man. There are good houses and bad houses, crazy houses exhibiting the folly of their builders in stucco turrets or mad chimney pots, and stupid houses without character or proper sculleries and sinks. The house at Maleka, though small and possessing few rooms, was cheerful and had a pleasant personality of its own, but it did not possess a stick of furniture. Mrs. Connart with the prescience of a woman and assisted by the advice of Bowlby, had brought with them from San Francisco articles of furniture not to be obtained in the islands, unless at a ruinous cost. Mats, cane chairs and hammocks could be obtained from the natives. All the same, there had been furniture in the house and it was gone. Dobree had given them a list of things and amongst them was an article on which Mrs. Connart had, woman-like, set her heart. “One red cedar chest, four foot six by three foot,” was its specification.

“But who can have taken them?” said she, as they stood in the empty front room, after a tour of inspection. “There was crockery ware, besides, and oh, ever so many things, and Mr. Dobree was so kind. He would not take a penny for them. You remember, George, he said: ‘When I give a friend a box of cigars I don’t take the bands off them, whatever is there you can have’—and now there’s nothing!”

“Maybe the Kanakas have taken them,” said Bowlby.

“Or Seedbaum,” said Connart.

“As like as not,” replied the captain. “He seems to look on the blessed place as his. He told me down in the cabin he reckoned he was king of Maleka, and that all the Kanakas jumped to his orders as if he was king. He’s got a clutch on the place, there’s no denying that, and he manages to keep missionaries away somehow or ’nother. I’m afraid you’re going to have trouble with that chap.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” said Connart. “I’ve got a revolver and can use it if worst comes to the worst.”

“Oh, it’s not revolvers I’m thinkin’ of,” said the captain, “it’s trickery; he’d trick the devil out of his hoofs and then make gelatine of them, would Seedbaum; have no trade dealin’s with him; take my advice, just stick to the Kanakas.”

“Let’s go and ask him, right now, if he knows where the things have gone to,” said Mrs. Connart.

“Well, that’s not a bad idea,” said Bowlby. “He’s sure to lie; anyhow, it’ll clear matters.”

Seedbaum’s house was a substantially built coral-lime-washed building, with a broad verandah in which hung a cage containing a parrot, the garden was neat and well-tended, and the whole place had an air of quiet prosperity, neatness and order, as though the better part of the owner’s character were here exhibited for the general view.

Seedbaum was seated on the verandah, reading a San Francisco paper obtained from Bowlby.

Seeing them approach he rose to greet them.

“I’ve come to ask you about the furniture in our house,” said Connart. “There were quite a lot of things left by the last man, and I have a list of them, but everything has gone, been taken away—do you know anything of the matter?”

“I don’t know anything of what you call furniture,” said the other. “Wiart sold me his sticks when he left for fifty dollars, and a bad bargain it was.”

“He sold you them?”

“Yes.”

“But they belonged to Mr. Dobree.”

“Oh, did they; well, Dobree will have to dispute that with Wiart. Wiart said they were his.”

“Have you his receipt?”

“Lord, no, there was no receipt in the matter. I handed him over the dollars and he handed me over the rubbish. It was a favour to him.”

“Was there a cedar-wood chest?” asked Mrs. Connart.

“There was. It’s in my house now, there; you can see it through the door.”

Through the open door which gave a view of the front room Mrs. Connart saw the object of her desire. It was a beauty, solid, moth-defying, with brass corners and brass handles. It was hers by all right, and Seedbaum had tricked her out of it. She spoke:

“That chest is mine,” said she. “Mr. Dobree gave it to me, it was his property, and Mr. Wiart had no right to sell it.”

“Well,” said Seedbaum, “he sold it, and if there’s any trouble over it it will be between Dobree and Wiart, and Wiart was going to Japan, so he said when he left here, so Dobree had better go to Japan and have it out with him.”

Mrs. Connart turned.

“Come,” said she to the others, “there is no use talking any more to this person. I will write to Mr. Dobree.”

They turned away and Seedbaum sat down again to read his newspaper.

“That’s what I said,” spoke Bowlby. “Monkey tricks; you see how he’s placed; Wiart’s gone Lord knows where, and Pacific Coast law don’t run here. The way for you to do is to lay low and fetch him in the eye unexpected, somehow, though if you take my advice you’ll give him a wide offing. There’s no use in fightin’ with alligators; better leave them be. Hullo, what’s that?”

They turned.

Seedbaum had come out of the verandah.

A passing native had drawn his ire for some reason or another, and the redoubtable Seedbaum was storming at him. Then he kicked the native, and the latter, a big, powerful man, turned and ran.

“The coward!” said Mrs. Connart.

“I expect that chap ain’t a coward,” said Bowlby. “He’s just ’feared of Seedbaum. I reckon there’re some curious things in nature. I’ve seen a whole ship’s company livin’ in terror of a hazin’ captain. They could have hove him overboard and swore he fell over—for the after guard was as set against him as the fo’c’sle—but they didn’t. Just let themselves be driv’ like sheep and kicked like terriers. It’s the same with the Kanakas on this island, I expect.”

“He’s got a personal ascendancy over them,” said Connart.

“I reckon he’s got something like that,” said Captain Bowlby.

3

In a week they were settled down, and a few days later, the cargo having been landed and stored, the _Golden Gleam_ took her departure.

They went down to the beach to see her off; they watched her topsails vanish beyond the reef, and they returned, feeling very much alone in the world. A good man is warmth and light even to the souls of sinners. Captain Bowlby was illiterate; his language was free; he was not a saint, but he was a good, human man right through. The sea turns out characters like this just as she turns out shells. It is a pity that they have to cling to the ocean and the beaches; the cities want them.

“I feel just as if I had lost a near relation,” said Mrs. Connart.

“Well, we’ll have him back soon,” said her husband. “It’s up to us now to get the copra to give him a cargo.”

Next morning the new trader began business by laying out a selection of goods on the verandah of his store. Mrs. Connart, who knew something of the Polynesian dialects and who had the art of picking up unknown tongues, had already got in touch with the Kanakas; they charmed and pleased her, especially the children, and wherever she went she was greeted by friendly faces. It seemed to her that the population of this island, leaving out Seedbaum, her husband and herself, consisted entirely of children, children of different sizes and different ages, but children all the same.

Returning that day from a long walk in the woods she found Connart smoking a pipe on the verandah of their house. He looked rather depressed.

“I can’t make it out,” said he; “there’s no trade doing.”

“Maybe they don’t know you have started in business yet.”

“Oh, yes, they do; lots of them have passed and seen the store open; they’ve turned to look at the goods, and they seemed attracted, but they went on.”

“Well, give them time,” said she.

“Look,” said Connart, “there’s copra going to Seedbaum’s; they’re trading with him, right enough.”

Mrs. Connart watched the copra bearers, but said nothing.

In her heart she felt that Seedbaum was moving against them by some stealthy means. At first she thought that it might be possible he had worked upon the native mind and induced the Kanakas to put a taboo upon the newcomers, but she dismissed this idea at once. There was no taboo. The Kanakas were not a bit afraid of either her or her husband, on the contrary, there was every evidence of friendliness.

“Well,” she said that night, when the store was closed for the day without a knife or a stick of tobacco changing hands, “there’s nothing to be done till we find out why they are acting so. It’s that creature, I am sure. He began by robbing me of my beautiful cedar-wood chest, and he’s going on to rob you of your chances in business. Well, let him beware. I’m Christian enough not to wish to hurt him, but I’m Christian enough to believe there’s a power that punishes the wicked, and he’s wicked. I knew him for a wicked man directly he came on board the ship.”

“He keeps to himself, and that’s one good thing,” said Connart; “but I don’t see how he can stop the natives from trading with us.”

“I don’t, either, but I know he does,” said she.

The next day passed without business being done, and the next.

“We may as well shut up shop, it seems to me,” said Connart. “How would it be if you spoke to some of these people and asked them what is the matter?”

“I’ve thought of that,” said his wife, “and I held off because—because—oh, I don’t know, it seems sort of indelicate to ask people why they don’t come to one’s store. I’ll do it to-morrow morning first thing. One mustn’t let one’s feelings stand in the way when one’s living is concerned.”

“I wish we had never come here,” said he, “for your sake.”

“Never come here?” she cried. “Why, I wouldn’t for the earth have gone anywhere else! I love the place and I love people, and what are difficulties? Why, difficulties are the main excitement in life. If life wasn’t an obstacle race, it would be a very flat affair. George, we have got to beat that man, and I’m going to, you wait and see.”

He kissed her and blessed her, and they sat down that night to a game of cribbage, Seedbaum and the wickedness of the world forgotten.

Next morning after breakfast Mrs. Connart went out. She passed through the village and on to the beach, brilliant in the morning light, breeze-blown and filled with the murmurs of the reef; some natives were pulling in a net and she watched them, chatting to them and playing with the children who had come down to secure the little fish. Then she had a talk with a woman who was standing by, a woman dark and straight as an arrow, a woman mild-eyed and with a voice sweet as the sound of running water.

Leaving her, Mrs. Connart passed to a man who was engaged in mending an outrigger of one of the canoes hauled up on the beach; she had a talk with him.

Then she returned, walking slowly and thoughtfully to the house, where she found her husband.

“George,” said she. “I am right. It is that Creature. The people hate him, but they are afraid of him. It seems absolutely absurd, but it is so. He holds them in a spell. He kicks them and beats them, but they are not afraid of that. It’s just him.”

“Good Lord,” said Connart, “why on earth don’t they rise against him, and tell him to go to the devil; he’s only one man, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” said she. “It’s a mystery of human nature. He’s the tyrant type, and it’s always been the same in the world; there’s some sort of magnetism in that type that keeps folk under. History is full of that. It’s the soft man and the kindly man and the good man that’s assassinated, but tyrants seem to go free. He’s what he said he was, the king of this place—well, we must see what we can do to pull him from his throne. I wish there were more whites here.”

“That’s the bother,” said Connart.

Next morning they found a basket of fruit on their verandah, a gift from some unknown person. It was as though the Kanakas, afraid to show their sympathy and friendliness openly for the strangers, had done it in this manner. But no one came to trade.

That night two chickens, some sweet potatoes and another basket of fruit were deposited in the same place.

“And we can’t thank them,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I believe these haven’t all come from one person. I think it’s everyone here—they all like us. Oh, George, isn’t it maddening that we can’t have them openly our friends, just because of that Beast!”

“It is,” said George.

Now at eleven o’clock that morning, Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah and engaged on some needle-work, noticed a little native girl, who, pausing at the garden gate and seeming undecided, at last picked up courage, opened the gate and came towards the house.

Connart was in the house, going over some accounts, when his wife ran in to him.

“George, come at once,” cried she; “such a dreadful thing—they’ve risen against Seedbaum and they are killing him somewhere in the woods, and they want us to go and see!”

“Good Lord!” cried he, “killing him! Want us to go and see! Are they mad?”

He picked up his hat and came out on the verandah, where the pretty little native girl was waiting, a flower of the scarlet hibiscus in her hair and calm contentment in her eyes.

“I can’t quite make out all she says,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I can make out her meaning.”

“You’d better stay here,” said he, “whilst I go; there may be trouble.”

“I am not afraid,” she replied. “Come on, we may be too late.”

They followed the child.

“Tell her to hurry,” said Connart.

“She says we need not hurry,” replied she; “as far as I can make out they are only going to kill him—I expect they have him a prisoner somewhere; well, much as I hate him, I am glad we will be able to save him.”

“That depends on how the natives take it,” said he.

The child led them from the road by a path trod by the copra gatherers, a path running through the wonderland of the woods, a green gloom where the soaring palms shot upwards through a twilight roofed with moving shadows and sun sparkles.

They reached a glade where a number of natives were seated in a circle. Above them and swinging by a cord from two trees was hanging a little disk about half the size of a tambourine; the disk was made of cane, and so constructed as to leave a small hole in the centre. An old native woman seated under the disk was clapping her hands and repeating something that sounded like an incantation. Every pair of eyes in the whole of that assembly was fixed upon the disk.

The child whispered something to Mrs. Connart. Then she turned from the child and whispered to her husband.

“It’s only witchcraft. That’s a soul trap. They are waiting for a fly to pass through the hole in that thing. If it does, then Seedbaum will die.”

“Good heavens,” murmured Connart, with a half-laugh. “Why, the fellow hasn’t any soul—not enough to furnish out a fly.”

They watched patiently for ten minutes. There were plenty of flies; they rested on the little tambourine, crawled round its edge, but not one went through the hole.

“Come,” whispered Connart.

They withdrew, taking the path back.

“It’s pathetic,” murmured she.

“It’s damned foolishness,” he repeated. “They trade with him, and let him kick them, and then go on with that nonsense. If they refused him copra, they would bring him to his senses quick enough.”

“Anyhow they hate him,” said she.

“Much good that is,” he replied.

4

Now it came about that the soul trap—turning out a dead failure, since not a single fly went through the hole—instead of destroying Seedbaum, fixed him on a pedestal more secure than that which he had hitherto occupied.

He was indestructible, and the power which he exercised over the native mind threatened to be as indestructible as himself.

However, vengeance was coming. Retribution for all the wrongs he had committed, his swindlings, brutalities and beatings.

It came in this wise:

One afternoon Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah and reading _The Moths of the Limberlost_, heard the cries of a child.

Right in front of the house, King Seedbaum was beating a native child for some fault or fancied disrespect towards his royal highness, cuffing it and cuffing it, whilst the squeals of the cuffed one affronted the heavens and the ears of all listeners.

Now, to touch a child or dog or cat in Mrs. Connart’s presence was to raise a devil. White as death she rushed into the house and white as death she rushed out again. She held her riding-whip, a Mexican quirt, ladies’ size, but horribly efficient in energetic hands.

Seedbaum saw her coming, couldn’t understand, caught the first lash on his right arm and along his back—he was wearing the pyjama suit—and his yell brought the village flocking and Connart running from a field where he was laying out some plants.

He saw the quirt lashing over Seedbaum’s shoulder, across his legs, and across the back, for the King of Maleka was now running, running and pursued for ten yards or so whilst the quirt got one last blow in.

Then he had his wife in his arms, and she was weeping.

“Did he touch you?” cried Connart.

“No—it was a child,” she gasped. “Beast! Look, he has run into his house.”

The street was filled with a crowd that all through the beating had remained spell-bound. Now it broke up into knots and small parties, all talking together excitedly.

Connart, with his arm around his wife, drew her into the house.

She sat down on a couch and laughed and sobbed. She was half hysterical, but not for long.

“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I would do it again. It’s not because of us—but because he was beating a child.”

“Brute!” said Connart. “I’ll go down now and give him more. I want to have it out with him right now.” He turned to the door. She caught him.

“No,” she cried, “he’s had enough. He won’t do it again. Listen, what’s that?”

From away in the direction of Seedbaum’s house came a sound like the swarming of angry bees, also shouts.

They rushed to the door and saw Seedbaum. Seedbaum with fifty people round him, and every person trying to beat him at the same time.

“Good God,” said Connart, “you’ve taught them the trick—they’ll kill him.”

“He’s got away,” cried Mrs. Connart.

Seedbaum, breaking from the crowd, was making up the street, the whole village was after him; he passed the Connarts’ house and headed for the woods where he disappeared. Then his pursuers drew off, and, rushing to the house of Connart, swarmed at the railings, shouting and waving and laughing, whilst Mrs. Connart interpreted.

“They say he’ll never come back to the village again,” said she, “for they’ll kill him if he does; that he’ll have to live in the woods. Oh, George! I’m frightened—what will be the end of it all?”

* * * * *

The end was a whale ship that came into the lagoon. Seedbaum, living in the woods and supported by the generosity of the Connarts, was given notice by the three chiefs of the island, Matua, Tamura and Ratupea by name, that if he did not go away in the whale ship he would be killed before the next ship arrived. And he went.

He was almost friendly with the Connarts, in return for their food and protection, at the last, and as the natives would allow him to take nothing with him, he had to leave everything behind him, including the red cedar-wood chest, which thus came back to its rightful owner.

He did not even threaten the natives with governmental retribution; he knew he was done and placed out of court by his own conduct.

But the thing that always remained with Connart out of this affair was the fact that a population of active and vigorous people would still have been down-trodden by a merciless tyrant but for a little, quiet, calm-eyed woman, who had unconsciously and just from an uprising of her own spirit, “shown them the trick.”

Spirit—after all, what else is there in the world beside it?

ALLELUIA

By T. F. POWYS

Follow me into one of those shining days of April, when the blue in the sky has lost its March iciness and the village of Wallbridge pauses in its usual grey monotony to look for events.

Events come indeed, as they always do, for those who wait long enough for them. The first intimation that something was going to happen chanced to be picked up in the road by Mr. Tapper, labourer of Ford’s Farm.

Mr. Tapper had once found a penny in the mud, and ever since that eventful day the good man had kept his eye fixed upon the road when he walked abroad.

Mr. Tapper handed the paper he had found when teatime came round to his daughter Lily, remarking as he did so:

“’Tain’t nothink,” which merely meant, of course, that the paper wasn’t a penny.

Lily—the pretty Lily—gave her head a little shake, and read at the top of the printed sheet the word “Alleluia.”

It was all out then, of course, as soon as the pretty Lily had got hold of it, all the whole merry matter of the coming of Alleluia into Wallbridge. After he had handed in those papers at the doors—with the exception of the ones that he wisely dropped in the road, well knowing that anything picked up always interests—invited everyone to his meetings. Alleluia for he must have known everyone would call him Alleluia, began to preach and sing in a devout manner in the handsome tent that he had set up near to his van. He was so gentle and polite and so good at starting those emotional tunes—invented by Mr. Moody—that Wallbridge at once praised and patronised him.

Alleluia had come down from Oxford, and his confiding and childlike look, together with his silky moustache, had led him into the bypaths and hedges and so on and on until he reached the village of Wallbridge.

There were, of course, troubles in even so gentle a young man’s path; there were difficulties and doubts—little worries—so that Alleluia’s eyes were not always without their tears.

The Wallbridge people were not always so loving as they should be. The Rev. John Sutton, the vicar, disapproved of the preacher’s looks and was even slightly contemptuous of the glory hymns. This unkindness hit the young man hard, because, outwardly, the vicar seemed pleased with the work that he was doing.

And there was Lily. Lily had to be considered even by Mr. Tapper, her father, as something female. Mr. Tapper put her down entirely, with her mother included, to the simple fact that he had stayed too long out one lovely June fair day at the Stickland revels. Even that day he saw as all Lily’s fault, feeling, truly perhaps, that the child brings her parents together.